Crucified Idolization
by Elusive Moon
Summary: Knives is dead, the Gun Ho Guns are gone and it seems Vash can finally rest. Enter Knives vengeful lover who believed Vash was the evil one and is being used by the one who influenced Knives to destroy. Can Vash keep from going mad as Knives had? Find out
1. The Lover

Darkness filled the cold abandoned factory Knives had once called his hideout. In the midst of it a woman stood in a long white dress. The only bright thing among the cold, unforgiving gray of the factory. Her voice echoed through the silent place.  
  
"Knives? Knives!?" She jumped as a voice came from amidst the shadows.  
  
"He's dead my lady." The voice was gruff and feminine at the same time and the woman spun in surprise her amethyst eyes widening slightly in anger and fright.  
  
"What!? Who are you? Where is Knives?"  
  
She heard, rather than saw the shadowed stranger smirk. "As I said Lady. He is dead. By the hand of his brother. Killed by Vash. The Stampede."  
  
"No!" The woman's cry of outrage and anguish echoed all around and she fell to her knees, tears coursing down her cheeks in waves and rives, the whole place so silent that the tiny drops could be heard as they fell on the cold stone floor. "How? How?"  
  
"He was cut down. In cold blood trying to protect the innocent." The stranger's voice was low and its lie went believed.  
  
"That monster. How dare he!" The woman punches the ground heedless to the pain as her fist began to bleed from the impact. "How dare he kill a good man! My man!" she lifted her head and shook her long glorious midnight black hair back as her eyes darkened to an angry violet "Vash will pay!"  
  
The stranger smiled darkly. "As you will My Lady."  
  
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~  
  
"If we don't get more money soon Meryl I don't think we're gonna make it." Milly said glancing around the diner.  
  
"I wonder why." Meryl shot a glance at Vash who was pigging out on a giant plate of spaghetti while spectators watched in shock.  
  
Vash looked up and grinned sheepishly. "Oh hey, don't be like that." His shoulders sank. "Besides I didn't ask you to keep following me."  
  
Meryl glared heatedly. "Of course you didn't! But you are still a liability and it's out job to keep you out of any trouble do you understand!?"  
  
Vash cringed "Ah, yes ma'm!"  
  
Meryl sighed and glanced out side thinking silently to herself 'Even if Knives is gone. There could be other problems out there. Right? Isn't that why we have to stay with him?'  
  
"Meryl?" Meryl turned to see both Milly and Vash staring at her questioningly. "Are you alright?"  
  
Meryl blushed and smiled a bit to cover it. "Yea I'm fine. Just wondering how to pay for all this." She turned away from the table to call for the check. "Wai- ter?" She blinked in surprise. The waiter seemed frozen in mid stride a platter of drinks balanced in his hand.  
  
"Meryl what's going on?" Milly's tone was frightened and Meryl glanced around. Everyone seemed frozen in min act.  
  
"I'm not sure Milly. I th- Hey!" She stood as Vash dashed out the door. "Come on Milly!" She ran out the door after him and just avoided colliding into him where he stood just outside the diner staring at the town in shock. "What's the big-" She stopped. The whole town was frozen. As if time had stopped completely.  
  
Vash frowned. 'What's going on?' He shifted angrily then screamed. "WHAT'S GOING ON!?"  
  
"I can answer that." A swarm of thick silver metal vines shot out of the ground and grasped Milly and Meryl then tossed them back against the building and wrapped around them pinning their bodies against the wall on it.  
  
"What the-" Vash made a move towards them and another metal vine shot up and flipped him back against the diner then disappeared back into the ground. He winced then looked up. "Who- Who are you?"  
  
A woman stood infront of the trapped Milly and Meryl. Her long midnight black hair shone blue in the sun light as it swept out behind her in the light breeze the ruffled the dusty town. Her deep violet eyes gleamed with anger and even deeper grief. She wore a simple white gown, tied with a belt of diamond and silver at the waist. She was a small woman yet her stomach had the lightest swelling. The only thing that ruined the beautiful innocent and harmless aura of her was the icy hatred in her eyes and the flashing black gun the same color of her hair that gleamed in the sunlight.  
  
Vash stared. "A woman." *sweat drops anime style* "You really shouldn't be here. There's something odd going on."  
  
She lifted her chin and glared eyes flashing dangerously. "If you'd label it odd very well. It matters not. You will all die before you can decipher what's going on."  
  
Vash shot to his feet. "Just who are you lady!?"  
  
She shifted her stance bringing the gun up to her chest as he stood. "You murdered my beloved. You killed a good man who only wished to correct the harm you have done to the innocent! An angelic man who you plagued for all his life so he had hide in shadows and couldn't provide a good life for his family! But most of all you murdered the father of my soon to be child!" Her eyes blazed. "I am Dagger and for your crime I will make you pay!" She brought up the gun.  
  
Vash stood his ground and lifted his hands in a gesture of peace. "I don't know what you're talking about!" He glanced at Meryl and Milly "Let them go and we can sit and talk about it." He grinned sheepishly again. "How about it. Ok? Ah!" He jumped back as a bullet lodged itself into the patch of ground he had been standing in.  
  
"Don't mock me!" She raged as he dodged another angry bullet from her gun. "YOU KILLED KNIVES!!" Her shriek echoed through the still, lifeless town and Vash froze in surprise causing a bullet to his him in the shoulder.  
  
He stumbled back and looked up at her. "Knives? You're talking about Knives." 


	2. Knives and Dagger

Her voice was low and dark. "Who else would I be talking of fool? Your own brother! You slaughtered your own brother who did nothing but wash away the evil you did!" She launched herself at him "You were an accident to be born."  
  
Vash stood his ground and caught her arm holding her immobile. "You're making a mistake. Knives lied to you. He wasn't who you thought he was."  
  
She raged eyes going a shade darker than the angry violet. "LIAR!" She yanked herself back wards and stumbled a moment before regaining her composure before turning to look at Meryl and Milly who had gone silent. "And you two. You're the bitches who help him aren't you! I suppose you will lie as well."  
  
Milly glared. "How dare you talk to miss Meryl like that! You ought to-"  
  
"Milly." Milly looked at Meryl who shook her head lightly "Don't."  
  
"What?" Milly blinked in surprise and Dagger scowled.  
  
"What I say is true." Dagger spun back to face him lifting the gun as Vash spoke, standing up straight again.  
  
Dagger's hand shook, her eyes paling to an uncertainty indigo color. "Prove it."  
  
A/N (alright. We all know Vash isn't 100% human. So were just gonna pretend that this next little skill is one of his little talents. So please bare with me here. Thanks)  
  
Vash stood and stared straight at her, his turquoise eyes blazing. She backed away a bit then gasped as images hit her. Vash's memories of Knives and all the things he had done. Tears coursed down Dagger's cheeks as she watched the truth of Knives' insanity. Vash blinked and the blaze faded as he watched Dagger who was doubled over, head bent towards the ground as she wept shaking her head. The vines around Milly and Meryl disappeared back into the ground and they both fell free from the wall anime style (heh ^-^).  
  
"I'm sorry." Vash's voice was low. He moved towards her.  
  
Meryl stood. "Vash don't go nea-" She broke of and sweat dropped anime style as Vash knelt beside Dagger.  
  
"How did you meet Knives?" Dagger kept her head bent even as her tears subsided.  
  
"A long time ago." She seemed to be talking as if far off. As if she was lost in a memory and didn't know she was speaking to anyone else. "I was.....and orphan living on the street. In allies, under stairs. Sometimes I could pry up the boards of porches and wedge under there. Anywhere to hide. But I was always found." She shuddered visibly and Milly and Meryl stood up and watched her with wary curiosity.  
  
"The men they always found me. Ever since I was 8 they had begun to seek me out. I was a no one. An orphan who never knew mother or father. Who would care if I were raped over and over and over again. The woman cared more that their cheating husbands would catch disease from me than that I was always violated. I was the little abandoned whore." Vash moved to touch her shoulder sympathetically but she cringed and moved away.  
  
Her voice took on a tone of wonder. "Then he came. My knight. I was 17 at the time when he found me. Hiding in an old house where a family had moved out. I was in a room crying and he appeared in the doorway and looked down at me and asked.......Why I sat there, crying so." She hugged herself and smiles so softly it made all three of their hearts ache. "He lifted me up into his arms and told me.........said, it was demeaning to sit there and bawl. He led my out into the street and stood there. Tall and magnificent so he seemed a god and people ran from him. I couldn't understand why. Wondered how they could see him as anything but good and saintly. Then I looked up and saw, he was angry. And I knew why. He was angry for me."  
  
"But he simply walked away carrying me and I fell asleep." She frowned. "I don't know how. Or I don't remember." Dagger smirked. "Or maybe I simply don't wish to tell you, but next thing that happened I was in a great room on a bed. He had brought me there. I was safe and he looked after me. He gave me food, and clothing, and he was kind." A tear slipped down her cheek. "He was so kind."  
  
Vash watched her scowling deeply. "I suppose he used you then." He fell over hard anime style when Dagger backhanded him leaving a blazing red mark on his cheek.  
  
"Hold your tongue! He didn't touch me!" She calmed a bit "As a matter of fact I came to him. I loved him. I loved what I thought he was I suppose. And I begged him, and pleaded with him to love me. To keep me." Tears rained down from her eyes again "And he did! Oh he did. I idolized him and dotted on him. His word was law for me. Anything he wanted I would have run to get. And I'd like to...I would still like to believe that he really did care about me. I really would. Then he told me about you."  
  
She looked away. "Told me you killed both his and your mother. Told me you destroyed innocent towns and tortured innocent people. Terrorized nations for your own cruel delight. For no reason what so ever. He told me you hunted him and forced him to hide. And he cried. I guess now that I think about it, the tears were fake. But he always apologized because he couldn't give me a good home. He did disappear. But....but he said it was to help fix what you had done. All lies now, I know." She looked up at him; her eyes were now pale sorrowful crystal blue. "I'm sorry I hit you. I guess with all that Knives has done to you, you had right to believe he would use me."  
  
"It's alright." She looked up in surprise to find Meryl and Milly knelt beside her. "We've been hitting him all the time and it doesn't seem to invoke and change." Meryl frowned "What did you do to the townspeople?"  
  
"I froze time for them." Dagger shifted.  
  
"And you kept it going for use. Where you going to kill us?"  
  
Dagger answered without blinking an eye. "Yes."  
  
Meryl sweat dropped "Ahhhh"  
  
"What will you do now?" Dagger turned to look at Vash.  
  
"I'm going to release these people. Then I'm going to kill myself."  
  
Vash, Meryl, and Milly jumped in surprise "WHAT!?"  
  
Vash smiled a bit sheepishly again "Don't you think that's a little drastic."  
  
"I was going to kill all three of you. I loved a man who slaughtered and mutilated." Her eyes dropped to her stomach. "And now I carry his child."  
  
All three jump again "WHAT!"  
  
Vash grinned brightly and little lights glittered around his head (you know what I'm talking about). "Oh great! I'm gonna be an uncle."  
  
"No you're not." Vash falls over anime style and looks up at Dagger's impassive face. "If I die so does the child. That's what I want."  
  
"You can't blame an unborn child for sins the father has done." Milly said outraged. "It's just not fair!"  
  
Dagger flared. "Would you like to carry it!" she glared at Meryl then Vash. "Or either of you!"  
  
Vash falls over anime style again. "I ah....really don't think that's possible."  
  
"Well it doesn't matter anyway. You can't very well stop me. As soon as you leave no one will." She looked up and glared as Vash took a seat stubbornly next to her.  
  
"Well then it looks like I'll just have to stay here. I can't very well let something happen to my nephew now can I?" Dagger sweat drops then scowls angrily.  
  
"It looks like we're going to have to bring her with us, eh." 


End file.
